Comments regarding Kalapana Tropicals Inc.

I ordered from Kalapana several times, and I was never very impressed. I do not order from there anymore. The orchids I received (mostly Oncidium intergenerics) were poorly rooted in their pots. The pseudobulbs were severely shriveled, such that they were almost flat. Upon unpotting the plants to inspect the root heath, I found that the plants had few to no live roots. The thing that bothers me most about this is that the plants were visibly in poor condition. Somebody had to pack those plants into the box, and that person could have easily seen that the plants were in bad shape, but instead of contacting me and telling me and asking me if I wanted to change or cancel my order, this person went ahead and put the visibly sick plants in the box and shipped them to me anyway. That is dishonest, and that is horrible customer care. If they cared about their customers, they would not send visibly sick plants. I have a friend who routinely tests every new acquisition to his collection for viruses. I had him test three plants that I bought from Kalapana, and they all tested positive for virus. Every single one of them. I don't feel like I can trust Kalapana to give me good value for my money when I buy plants from them that i cannot see first. If I had been visiting the greenhouse and had seen those plants that they sent me, I never would have bought them. And all of the Oncidiums I've bought from them were in the same condition, and these were several orders over a period of time, so this is not an isolated incident. This is apparently how they do business. They know your plant is sick, but they send it to you anyway, knowing you probably won't complain because people don't like to complain, and it takes too much effort to ask for a replacement plant or a refund. I won't shop here again. It's just easier to do that than to try to fight with a company that doesn't want to give you your money back. It's usually not worth the fight. But for the record, no plant I have ever bought from Kalapana is still alive.